Ludum Dare 27 Results

The Village of Lost Time has been ranked 18th place overall in Ludum Dare 27!

Is also ranked 13th place for graphics. The art was heavily inspired by Toy Defenders, and it was partially inspired by Kingdom Rush. I admire the simplicity of shapes and colors in games like these. Scribblenauts is another one I have been reviewing from an artistic point of view; I love it.

That grind

I made several changes to help reduce the amount of downtime in the game. The allies no longer return to the subway station, which acted like a main menu to exchange items and train in skills. Those interface features still exist; the merchant and skills trainer emerge after a battle immediately to trigger the interface options. It feels more natural and less disruptive.

Battle

Downtime, placeholder characters for merchant, equipment, skills trainer.

As a way of balancing the game, selected allies can scavenge for equipment and money while others stay behind. It is a risk versus reward mechanism.

This month I have to bring everything together and do a full balance and bug fix pass. Meanwhile I want to squeeze in some dialog and at least four other backgrounds. This has been a huge undertaking, but I am confident it will all come together.

The Village of Lost Time

On the weekend I participated in compo Ludum Dare 27! The 48 hour solo game jam held three times a year. It looks like the number of total entries almost hit a new record of 2213. The theme was "10 seconds" winning by a landslide in the final voting round. My suggestion "You must leave it behind" got a lot of buzz and ended up in third place.

My entry is called "The Village of Lost Time". It embraces the 10 second theme by rewinding time prior to your daughter's demise. As you control a villager, the game records the movement and replays it for each sequential session. Eventually you have this massive army built up. The goal is to fend off the spirits that take your daughter, destroying totems to harvest appropriate magic.

The Good

• I gained a lot of experience. This was the absolute first game I made where it was entirely playable using crude placeholder art. Rectangles and circles everywhere, but it worked. I spent the first day programming everything, and the second on art, audio, and dialog. Now I can repeat this process with confidence.
• I slept eight hours both nights (the jam begins at 9PM) and I did not consume more caffeine than I normally would. I stuck to my typical daily routine.

The Bad

• Sound effects. I used as3sfxr for most of them, with limited time to record my own, such as chopsticks and knives hitting my desk. The spirit sound is me blowing over a plastic bottle all warped up in Audacity.
• There is no music. Only after the jam did I come across this amaaaazing program that can generate a unique song using specified structure and arrangement. Yes, this is allowed, and even recommended.

The Ugly

(technical ramblings)

The original 48 hour version suffers from a technical bug that causes incorrect movement of the previously recorded villagers but only as the game progresses. Basically, each frame I was recording the keyboard controls, so the currently controlled villager and recorded ones would compute velocity and position using the same function.

The time step is a fixed number so frame rate should not matter. Floating point errors are expected in numerical integration, but it is all feeding off the exact same data each session. Eventually recordings get bugged and seem to worsen each sequential session, as if bad data is bleeding into the mix.

I fixed it by only storing the positions each frame, calculating velocity only for the current villager. This guarantees it to work accurately.

Equipment

Recently I took a trip to the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. Currently in the atrium is a special "mouse exhibit" that had on display over a hundred items in a dark room, ranging from toys to tools. Supposedly its purpose is to overwhelm the viewer by everyday objects, due to the large number of pieces, each demanding equal attention. The viewer, like a mouse, scans around a cluttered room. There is no focal point of the art.

At least that was my impression of it all.

In a way, I used it as inspiration to create these 61 items for my game. There are eight items per category with the exception of special rare equipment, tentatively sorted in ascending order of power. Each human can equip one on the left panel, plus one on the right.

I need a few junk items too, so I suppose the total will be bumped up to a nice and even 64, power of two.

Semi finalized menus

Below is the same interface from the previous blog entry, with the first art pass. Still, placeholder description text for a sense of scale. Ignore the botched shadows.

It is very motivating to be able to wake up in the morning and assign myself the task of fully implementing any one of these features. For example, "hmm today I feel like adding all the art and code for the twelve achievements". Another day I may add virtually all the sound effects or music.

Speaking of that, I have noticed that I definitely work best immediately after waking up. That three hour block of time can be a critical window of opportunity to accomplish something important. Often, it can be the majority of what actually gets done that day.

From left to right: skills, encyclopedia, missions, achievements, extra equipment, options.

The underground subway concept

This is the underground subway station, home of the survivors. All of this is placeholder art. There are several options to choose from, depicted by actual objects in the scene. Basically this is the third iteration of this aspect of the game.

I'm a bit torn on adding story elements. Perhaps there will be a television or radio (optionally usable) that broadcasts the status of the rest of the city. Or, maybe the survivors will carry on brief conversations before or after missions.

All abilities are functional

I have just completed all the special abilities, getting things ready for balance and play-testing.

That innocent looking scientist has quite a few tricks up his sleeve, definitely a worthy member to the player's party. Don't mess with the nurse either.

Meanwhile the athlete with the red hat is trying to determine whether to call his soccer ball a football for non US and Canadian gamers... but then what would he call his other football? You know, the brown oval shaped one. Awkward.

I plan to allow two inventory slots per human for additional benefits and perks. For example, weapons allow a free hit at the beginning of the player's turn. Other items can regenerate health, increase damage, and even award an extra turn.

Critically, half the entertainment value of this game will be in the progression on a macro scale - finding new allies, leveling them up, collecting equipment, discovering new areas and zombie types. Surprises around every corner can keep a player interested. The player will have a great deal of freedom this time, compared to predetermined battles and loot in my previous games.